mikao's world

exploitation

although blogging has been around for awhile, just right about now i think we can safely say it's becoming more mainstream. so exploitation was bound to happen. i think it's way lame-o that dr.pepper and 7up made a cow blog over at ragingcow.com... and i have a few points to make:

a) who wants to read a fake cow's blog?
b) the only way you can really tell that this site is owned by dr. pepper and 7up is if you go to the little 2003 at the bottom left of the screen and click on it.
c) cherry flavoured milk... is that what they're trying to sell? that sounds way too gross for me. i don't even really like regular milk that much, why would i want to drink milk that looks like pepto bismol? apparently there are a variety of flavours to be introduced this april. i will not be partaking of any of them.
d)apparently the "5 top webloggers between 18 and 24" got to go on a big trip paid by dr. pepper and 7up to their headquarters... these blogs are linked to at the bottom right of the page. they link to to the aforementioned fake blog. as much as i'd like to call them sellouts, i'd take a free trip too and would promote your gross milk if you paid me to. how sad is that?

and wait a minute... why didn't i get contacted by dr. pepper and 7up? is my blog not cool enough? i would appreciate an email or some comments from corporate headquarters on how i can make my blog more appealing to marketers. maybe it's just because i'm not american. that must be it.

here are a few articles on the "controversy", in case you're interested:
Globe and Mail
newsweek (scroll down to "flogging on a blog")
cnn